


and to thy ancient malice

by threegee



Category: Coriolanus - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threegee/pseuds/threegee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rome and Antium have been at war so long that their scars have scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and to thy ancient malice

**Author's Note:**

> Aufidius's wife is not named in the text, so I picked one. Title is from Act IV Scene V.

Rome and Antium have been at war so long that their scars have scars.

The Volscian oracle once said that Martius and Aufidius have been at war since before they were born: their stars were aligned against one another, a permanent, eternal tension.

 

+

They meet on dirt roads, in city streets, on rocky cliffs, in sheltered bluffs, in hidden corners, on open fields -- always, always in battle.   They are fighting even when apart, fighting in their tactics and in their dreams, in the pooling sweat, the sour smell of healing.

 

In sleep and in waking, in person and in planning, they grapple with each other.  Leaping forward, snarling, circling again and again: two dogs beating back their desire for torn flesh with the force of their code of honor.   Oh the cursed necessary code, that drapes _civilization_ around bloodlust.

 

+

When Martius conceives his son by Virgilia, he does so with no fuss or doubt.   A whispered phrase, a rucked tunic, a breathy sigh.  A bitten lip and a furrowed brow, a mild earthquake and then emptiness.

(She is in love with the scars on his chest and on his psyche and with the way that he holds himself above her.)

 

When Aufidius and Iulia cleave and separate, there is laughter and teasing and stroking of hair; there are oils and gasps and scratches and screams.  Three sons and a daughter secure his future while his battle scars secure his legacy.

Iulia flits from room to room, from thought to thought, scattering bracelets and scarves and little kisses wherever she goes.   Aufidius is charmed by her, charms her, pushes up against her again and again, but he is never consumed; there is always space to wonder.

 

+

In battle there is no time to wonder or think or breathe.   There is only the dirt and the sky and the flesh and the steel.  Only the heat and the scrape and the hope and the fear.  The hiss and the thrust and the sudden silences.   The exquisite anticipation of facing off against his longtime partner; the thrill of the dance newly fresh.

Aufidius doesn’t know how to interpret what he feels in Martius’s stare and Martius's approval and his disdain, Aufidius doesn’t know why a knife fight with Martius leaves him hurting in places where no blood was shed.

 

+

Martius respects Aufidius as an worthy foe, one who knows how to respect authority and assert dominance.   Not like the Roman rabble who want wounds split open again at home, as if war were fought for the applause, not for the gods.

Martius is not a lustful man; the only god for him is Mars, and perhaps Vulcan who forges the swords.   Both gods are desirous but they know that women are a distraction in the end.   Martius discharges his duty to his wife, to his family line, but most of all to his mother --

_\-- to his mother._

Aufidius has heard talk of Volumnia, the harridan forging her son Caius Martius’s iron spine; he has never met her but the Roman defectors say she was once beautiful in a terrifying sort of way.

He believes it.

Her son is terrifyingly beautiful too.


End file.
